1. Poor colour choice (lose or gain £200-500 on the sales price)
   The message is to buy and sell cars in popular colours – like black, grey even or silver. Yes they might be boring, but you’ll be maximising your sales audience – much more than if you buy a Barbie-like pink car, for example…
2. Scratched or tarnished alloys (lose or gain £50-100 per alloy on the sales price)
   Look out for a SMART car repairer to take care of these small but important details – see FOXY Choice website, for example. You’ll pay remarkably little to put these right.
3. Body dents and scratches (lose or gain as much as £200-300 per panel for worst examples)
   Same as per 2 – get an estimate for body repairs from a qualified bodyshop that knows what they are doing – independents will be cheaper than franchised dealerships. Google for dent removal then do your homework about that business in case they haven’t got all the appropriate equipment to do this well.
4. Cracked or chipped windscreen (£250-300)
   Easy to put right – call in a mobile service or ask a good bodyshop that does SMART and cosmetic body repairs.
5. Poorly maintained trims and upholstery (Up to £500 in some instances)
   As per 2 – see the likes of the female friendly car repairer ooops.net in Poole then see who is doing something similar in an area near you.
6. Messy interior (£300-400)
   This is a no-brainer of course but if you can afford to lose this amount of money then don’t bother cleaning your car before you take it to trade in at a dealership…
7. Undesirable specifications (Dependent on model)
   This is commonsense. More women than men buy automatics and more men than women look for vroom performance although it seems as if we are all looking for fuel performance now; other than the Top Gear boys that is!  And there are many other instances of features that please some but not others.
8. Incomplete service book and vehicle history (£300-400 or refusal to trade)
   I cannot emphasise this enough – don’t buy a cheap car that hasn’t been serviced regularly. If it hasn’t been looked after it WILL become very expensive to run after you buy it. If it seems too cheap there will be a downside – remember the saying ‘there is no such thing as a cheap lunch…’ and in the case of a poorly maintained car the bills can be huge…
9. Balding or near-limit tyres (£100-150 per tyre)
   To quote Homer Simpson ‘dohh…’. Even he wouldn’t be so silly, surely?
10. Short MOT (£200-300)
    This is likely more to do with the fleet cars carsite.co.uk buy but where there is a short MOT, get the car checked by a good local garage before you buy it. If you are a member of FOXY Lady Drivers Club you can claim one of your quarterly car fitness checks for free – this will likely tell you if you are about to buy a shocker…

*Figures based on a 3-year old/30,000 mile family-sized car from a mainstream manufacturer.

Finally let me add some foxy motoring advice – ALWAYS buy a HPI check or equivalent for any car you want to buy before you part with your ready cash. Too many cars for sale are not what they seem and if you buy a used car from an individual you have no comeback in law where caveat emptor is the rule.

<buyer departs with car and seller wipes hands with glee>.

Whereas if you buy from a reputable dealer (NB: all dealers say they are reputable of course…) you should ask and find that they have done the HPI check to be sure the car is what it claims to be. You then have 6 months protection in law if anything unreasonable were to develop when you take the car home so this should be the minimum period of any warranty.

FOXY Steph